S. African Cabinet Not Ready For Reform

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — There may well be a ``new South Africa`` about to rise at the bottom of the African continent, as President F.W. de Klerk so frequently promises.

But last week, immediately after De Klerk pledged to scrap the remaining apartheid laws, a procession of top Cabinet ministers stepped forward to make clear just how far the present white-ruled government is not prepared to go with its reform program.

The message was as blunt as the racially coded identification books South African citizens will continue to carry until the day a new, non-racial constitution takes effect: What apartheid put wrong, the government is not necessarily going to put right.

First the minister for constitutional development, Gerrit Viljoen, categorically ruled out any possibility that the government might compensate non-whites for property seized from them during the darkest years of apartheid`s ``forced removals.``

``If you revert to the question of so-called original owners, you don`t know where you are going to draw the line,`` Viljoen said. ``To go back historically would have a chaotic effect on the country.``

Then the foreign minister, Pik Botha, said there would be no unilateral abandonment of the government`s ``homeland`` policy, under which four black

``countries`` were granted their independence as part of an elaborate scheme to reduce the number of blacks inside South Africa`s borders.

``The government is in principle prepared to discuss their relationship with us,`` Botha said, ``but I assure you it is really not as simple as simply to say, `Look, we`re taking away your independence.` ``

The minister for planning and provincial affairs, Hernus Kriel, said the government would encourage, but would not compel, wealthy white town councils to cooperate and share resources with neighboring black communities.

``We don`t want to be prescriptive to communities because we have as yet not negotiated the final structures,`` he said.

The minister for black education, Stoffel van der Merwe, said the government was not rushing to consolidate the four existing, racially separate education departments into a single ministry.

``If one would just throw everybody together into one education department, it would create chaos,`` he said. ``One has to plan this minutely.``

And the minister for law and order, Adriaan Vlok, said the government was not prepared to repeal controversial security legislation, under which police can interrogate suspects without formally charging them.

The rapid-fire public caveats served as a sobering reminder of something government ministers constantly stress in private: that De Klerk`s dramatic political reforms have not been motivated by white guilt or remorse over the concept of apartheid-``apart-ness`` in Afrikaans. Instead, the country`s ruling Afrikaner elite came to the pragmatic realization that the system of enforced racial segregation just couldn`t work in a country that is 75 percent black.

For the moment at least, the ministers argue, repeal of the offending discriminatory laws-such as the Group Areas Act, which restricts where blacks may live, and the Land Act, which limits black ownership of property-ought to be enough.

To be sure, the government is taking steps to try to close the yawning economic gap that separates blacks from whites in South Africa. Special funds have been set aside to acquire land and build shelter for the estimated 7 million blacks with no roofs over their heads.

The government`s goal is to house everyone by the year 2000.

The government is considering a homebuyers` subsidy that could enable many blacks to own property for the first time in their lives.

And per capita education expenditures on black students have been increased: where a decade ago the government spent 13 times more on education for each white child than for each black, today white students get 3.8 times as much.

The government has promised eventual parity in education spending.

But in the eyes of most of South Africa`s blacks, those commitments are overshadowed by what the government still says it will not do-such as implement affirmative action programs to help blacks.

As well, the government has declined to consider drafting new laws, along the lines of U.S. civil rights legislation enacted in the 1960s, that would make it expressly illegal in the future to discriminate on the basis of race. ``We commend the steps which have been taken by Mr. De Klerk,`` African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela said Friday, during a press conference to mark the anniversary of his release from prison last Feb. 11. ``(But) it is almost a non-issue as far as blacks are concerned.

``Many blacks say, what`s the use of repealing the Group Areas Act and the Land Act when the government has given me no capacity to take advantage of the repeal of the legislation?``